how to get power to diamond scale turntable rails

cookster

New Member
Hello, I've built the diamond scale turntable and am trying to decide how to power the rails. One rail is powered by the ring rail, which is fine. According to the diamond scale instructions, the other rail is powered by connecting a power wire to the rotor on the bridge arch (which rotates in a brass pipe connected to the other rail) The diamond scale method should have poor results at best. There must be a better way, but I haven't found one yet.

This turntable is very popular, so someone must have thought of something better.

Thanks for your help,
Cookster


 

Ray Marinaccio

Active Member
You are right in that using the ring rail "should have poor results at best"
I used that method on an earlier turntable and had contact problems constantly.
The most recent turntable I built I designed and built a contact disk into the drive under the table. It not only transfers the power, it changes the polarity of the rails to match the the tracks around the pit and also energizes the track it is lined up with.
 

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Ray Marinaccio

Active Member
The wipers on the inner ring of the stationary plate on the left transfer power to the rotating disk on the right(2 wires are soldered to the rotating disk that lead to the turntable rails are not installed yet in this photo). The polarity of the rails is reversed as the disk rotates and the contacts transmit power to the opposite sides of the disk.
The wipers on the rotating disk transmit power to the individual tracks as the line up with the corresponding contact plate on the contact the stationary plate.
 

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Don't know if it will work with the Diamond T/T, but I'd try a sub-mini jack and socket as the pivot with a DPDT switch ti switch the power to the rails. HIH
Shortliner(Jack)away up here in the Highlands
 

cookster

New Member
Ray and shortliner, thanks for the info. This gives me a couple ideas to go and think on. Ray, I really like your method. This shouldn't be to hard to do with raw PC board stock by shaving and cutting the copper away to in effect make a PC board.
Thanks again.
 

cookster

New Member
Ray, I checked out your link. Very nice job. I like the contact plate very much, I'm going to build one and give it a try. My turntable is completed except for paint and powering the rails, so I'm ready to get this done and try it out.
Thanks again
 

ak-milw

New Member
I built my Diamond Scale turntable 5 years ago and wired it like they said and it has worked whenever I wanted to without problems!

:cool:
 
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